Purpose
To explore the efficacy and safety of combined low‐concentration atropine and orthokeratology (OK) for slowing the progression of myopia.
Methods
We performed a systematic search of English ...and Chinese databases to collect potentially eligible randomised controlled trials (RCTs), nonrandomised controlled trials (non‐RCTs) and retrospective cohort studies (REs) published between the establishment of the database and 1 January 2022. The weighted mean difference (WMD) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated for each outcome.
Results
Fifteen studies were ultimately included in the meta‐analysis, which indicated that compared with OK lenses alone, the combination of low‐concentration atropine with OK lenses significantly slowed axial growth (WMD = −0.12 mm; 95% CI: −0.13 to −0.11, p < 0.001) and reduced the rate of change of the spherical equivalent refraction (WMD = 0.15 D; 95% CI: 0.06 to 0.24, p < 0.001). Additionally, the combined treatment may cause a slight increase in pupil diameter (WMD = 0.62 mm; 95% CI: 0.42 to 0.81, p < 0.001). No significant difference in the amplitude of accommodation, intraocular pressure, tear film break‐up time or corneal endothelial cell density was found between the OK and combination therapy groups.
Conclusions
The combination therapy of low‐concentration atropine and OK lenses had a greater effect in slowing myopia progression during a 6‐to‐12‐month treatment interval and was still effective over a 24‐month period. Increased pupil diameter was the major side effect of the combination therapy, with no negative impact on the amplitude of accommodation, intraocular pressure, tear film break‐up time or corneal endothelial cell density.
Background: Combined therapy with tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) and anti-PD-1 antibodies has shown high tumor response rates for patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). ...However, using this treatment strategy to convert initially unresectable HCC to resectable HCC was not reported. Methods: Consecutive patients with unresectable HCC who received first-line therapy with combined TKI/anti-PD-1 antibodies were analyzed. Tumor response and resectability were evaluated via imaging every 2 months (±2 weeks) using RECIST v1.1. Resectability criteria were (1) R0 resection could be achieved with sufficient remnant liver volume and function; (2) intrahepatic lesions were evaluated as partial responses or stable disease for at least 2 months; (3) no severe or persistent adverse effects occurred; and (4) hepatectomy was not contraindicated. Results: Sixty-three consecutive patients were enrolled. Of them, 10 (15.9%) underwent R0 resection in 3.2 months (range: 2.4–8.3 months) after the initiation of combination therapy. At baseline, these 10 patients had a median largest tumor diameter of 9.3 cm, 7 had Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer stage C (vascular invasion) disease, 2 had stage B, and 1 had stage A. Before surgery, 6 patients were evaluated as a partial response, 3 stable disease, and 1 partial response in the intrahepatic lesion but a new metastatic lesion in the right adrenal gland. Six patients (60%) achieved a pathological complete response. One patient died from immune-related adverse effects 2.4 months after hepatectomy. After a median follow-up of 11.2 months (range: 7.8–15.9 months) for other 9 patients, 8 survived without disease recurrence, and 1 experienced tumor recurrence. Conclusions: Combination of TKI/anti-PD-1 antibodies is a feasible conversion therapy for patients with unresectable HCC to become resectable. This study represents the largest patient cohort on downstaging role of combinational systemic therapy on TKI and PD-1 antibody for HCC.
Emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) from port operations are a major environmental factor contributing to the problem of climate change. To cope with this challenge, International Maritime ...Organization (IMO) and port governments in nations have developed stringent regulations to curb the release of GHGs and other pollutants. To contribute a methodology towards the reduction in air pollution at port areas, the paper aims to assess container terminals’ (CTs) efficiency by considering the unexpected output (i.e., CO
2
emissions) in their operations by a revised SBM-DEA model. The main originality of this paper includes (1) using cluster analysis to determine the homogeneity of decision-making units (DMUs), (2) proposing the power utilization approach to estimate the amount of CO
2
emissions released by container terminal operators (CTOs), (3) incorporating CO
2
emissions into the assessment model to provide a complete efficiency ranking for CTs, and (4) developing the revised SBM to estimate efficiency scores for CT operations. Finally, 12 CTOs affiliated with the SNP corporation of Vietnam were empirically employed to validate the research model. Based on the result from the proposed research model, CTOs might reduce the amount of CO
2
emissions by adopting the slack variables while guaranteeing their operating efficiency.
Colorectal carcinoma (CRC) is one of the leading causes of cancer-related mortality worldwide. MicroRNAs (miRNAs, miRs) play important roles in carcinogenesis. MiR-126 has been shown to be ...down-regulated in CRC. In this study, we identified the potential effects of miR-126 on some important biological properties of CRC cells and clarified the regulation of insulin receptor substrate 1 (IRS-1) and its possible signaling pathway by miR-126.
The effect of miR-126 on IRS-1, AKT, and ERK1/2 expression was assessed in the CRC cell lines HT-29 and HCT-116 with a miR-126 mimic or inhibitor to increase or decrease miR-126 expression. Furthermore, the roles of miR-126 in regulation of the biological properties of CRC cells were analyzed with miR-126 mimic or inhibitor-transfected cells. The 3'-untranslated region (3'-UTR) of IRS-1 regulated by miR-126 was analyzed by using a dual-luciferase reporter assay.
We found that IRS-1 is the functional downstream target of miR-126 by directly targeting the 3'-UTR of IRS-1. Endogenous miR-126 and exogenous miR-126 mimic inhibited IRS-1 expression. Furthermore, gain-of-function or loss-of-function studies showed that over-expression of miR-126 down-regulated IRS-1, suppressed AKT and ERK1/2 activation, CRC cells proliferation, migration, invasion, and caused cell cycle arrest, but had no effect on cell apoptosis. Knockdown of miR-126 promoted these processes in HCT-116 cells and promoted AKT and ERK1/2 activation by up-regulating the expression of the IRS-1 protein.
MiR-126 may play roles in regulation of the biological behavior of CRC cells, at least in part, by targeting IRS-1 via AKT and ERK1/2 signaling pathways.
In this paper, we investigate the downlink achievable ergodic spectral efficiency (SE) of a single-cell multi-user millimeter wave system, in which a uniform rectangular array is used at the base ...station (BS) to serve multiple single-antenna users. We adopt a three-dimensional channel model by considering both the azimuth and elevation dimensions under single-path propagation. We derive the achievable ergodic SE for this system in with maximum ratio transmission precoding. This analytical expression enables the accurate and quantitative evaluation of the effect of the number of BS antennas, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and the crosstalk (squared inner product between different steering vectors) which is a function of the angles of departure (AoD) of users and the inter-antenna spacing. Results show that the achievable ergodic SE logarithmically increases with the number of BS antennas and converges to a value in the high SNR regime. To improve the achievable ergodic SE, we also propose a user scheduling scheme based on feedback of users’ AoD information and obtain the maximum achievable ergodic SE. Furthermore, we consider a dense user scenario where every user’s AoD becomes nearly identical and then derive the system’s minimum achievable SE.
This paper investigates the uplink of multi-user massive multi-input multioutput (MIMO) systems with a mixed analog-to-digital converter (ADC) receiver architecture, in which some antennas are ...equipped with costly full-resolution ADCs and others with less expensive low-resolution ADCs. A closed-form approximation of the achievable spectral efficiency (SE) with the maximum-ratio combining detector is derived. Based on this approximated result, the effects of the number of base station (BS) antennas, the transmit power, the proportion of full-resolution ADCs in the mixed-ADC structure, and the number of quantization bits of the low-resolution ADCs are revealed. Results show case that the achievable SE increases with the number of BS antennas and quantization bits, and it converges to a saturated value in the high user power regime or the full ADC resolution case. Most important, this work efficiency verifies that for a massive MIMO, the mixed-ADC receiver with a small fraction of full-resolution ADCs can have comparable SE performance with the receiver with all full-resolution ADCs but at a considerably lower hardware cost.
The essential oil (EO) of the herbal pair (HP), Alpinia officinarum‐Cyperus rotundus (HP G‐X) has been conventionally used in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) for ‘warming the stomach’ and ...relieving pain. However, its pharmacologically active compounds, as well as the mechanism of its anti‐gastric ulcer properties remain unclear. In this study, the EOs obtained from HP G‐X and its corresponding single herbs were analyzed using GC/MS. A total of 74, 56, and 85 compounds were detected in A. officinarum (GLJ), C. rotundus (XF), and HP G‐X, accounting for 93.2 %, 89.5 %, and 92.0 % of the total content, respectively. GLJ mainly contains 1,8‐cineol (22.0 %) and α‐terpineol (11.8 %), whereas cyperenone (22.4 %) and cyperene (12.3 %) were the major constituents in XF. These four compounds were also detected in the HP G‐X with relatively high composition as 11.8 %, 5.5 %, 11.8 %, and 10.6 %, respectively. Although no new compounds were detected in HP G‐X, the relative concentration of some compounds increased, while others decreased or even disappeared. HP G‐X showed the lowest toxicity (TC50 >800 μg/mL) against human gastric mucosal epithelial cells (GES‐1) and had the best protective effect against ethanol‐induced GES‐1 cell damage compared to the individual herbs. In vitro studies demonstrated that HP G‐X and the corresponding single herbs significantly reduced IL‐6, TNF‐α, and COX‐2. In addition, in vivo investigations indicated that HP G‐X can protect the gastric mucosa of mice from ethanol‐induced damage by inhibiting the inflammatory reaction and providing analgesia. It can also inhibit the expression of NF‐κBp65, COX‐2, and TRPV1 protein, reduce the concentrations of IL‐6 and TNF‐α, and relieve heat‐induced pain. This study further substantiated the traditional application of HP G‐X against gastric ulcers through both in vivo and in vitro investigations.
The transcription factor CEBPA is a master regulator of liver homeostasis, myeloid cell differentiation and is downregulated in several oncogenic diseases. MTL-CEBPA is a small activating RNA drug ...which upregulates gene expression of CEBPA for treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). We investigate whether MTL-CEBPA has immune modulatory effects by combining MTL-CEBPA with an anti-PD-1 checkpoint inhibitor (CPI) and/or radiofrequency ablation (RFA) in two preclinical models. First, mice with two flanks of HCC tumors (BNL) were treated with combinations of RFA (right flank), anti-PD-1 or MTL-CEBPA. The reduction of the left flank tumors was most pronounced in the group treated with RFA+anti-PD1+MTL-CEBPA and 7/8 animals responded. This was the only group with a significant increase in CD8+ and CD49b+/CD45+ tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL). Second, a combination of anti-PD-1+MTL-CEBPA was tested in a CT26 colon cancer model and this treatment significantly reduced tumor size, modulated the tumor immune microenvironment and increased TILs. These data suggest a clinical role for combination treatment with CPIs, RFA and MTL-CEBPA through synergistic priming of the immune tumor response, enabling RFA and CPIs to have a pronounced anti-tumor effect including activity in non-treated tumors in the case of RFA.
In this article, the interaction circuit, electron gun, and collector of a Ku -band helix space traveling-wave tube (TWT) are optimized by using the multiobjective optimization design tools, which ...were developed by combining the nondominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II) with the microwave tube simulator suite (MTSS). A prototype of the optimized TWT was then fabricated and tested at a beam voltage of 7.12 kV and a beam current of 90.14 mA. The testing results show that this tube is capable of providing over 200-W output power, over 54-dB gain, and over 69% overall efficiency within a 1-GHz bandwidth at the Ku -band, with a good linearity performance. The optimization design process takes 49 h with the help of optimization design tools.
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the sustainable efficiency of container terminals (CTs). By the definition of United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), business ...sustainable development includes three domains: Economics, Environment, and Society. Accordingly, based on the definition and the practical features of CT operations, this paper assesses sustainable efficiency for CTs from three perspectives: container throughput, CO2 emissions, and occupational safety. In this paper, a modality movement and a fuzzy grey relational analysis (GRA) approach are first proposed to estimate CO2 emissions and occupational safety index for CT operators, respectively. A hybrid slacks‐based measure (SBM)‐DEA model is then developed to assess the sustainable efficiency of CT operators. Finally, the CT operators in the Port of Kaohsiung are empirically investigated to validate the research model. Based on the results, theoretical and practical implications for the management of CT operators and port authorities are discussed.
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